LIV Golf's ongoing failure to captivate a live audience was made painfully clear amid disastrous TV ratings during the first event of the season.
Greg Norman promised "Golf But Louder" ahead of LIV 's disruptive emergence but the show fell completely flat as TV ratings flopped during an underwhelming second season opener at Makayoba in Mexico.
The contentious Saudi-backed breakaway series is aiming to establish global interest with a huge emphasis on its team concept this year. Big name signings like Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson have been recruited to help change the golfing landscape, but so far animal compilation programmes are proving more popular than esteemed major champions.
LIV's chief firebrand Norman hailed a "momentous day" for his series when it was announced last month that the series had signed its first ever US TV deal with the CW network.
The inaugural eight-event season was streamed entirely on YouTube, but a TV deal - albeit with a network compared to the UK's answer to Dave - was seen as a positive step ahead of the expanded 14-tournament calendar in 2023.
And there was plenty of intrigue about how LIV would fare as they reached TV screens across the US for the first time at the £21million 54-hole shotgun start event at El Camaleon Golf Club. But it transpired that 'World's Funniest Animals', another CW programme, was deemed better weekend entertainment than the golf broadcast.
John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal reports that the tournament drew a 0.2 TV rating on Saturday for its CW network debut across its 26 measured markets. The numbers mean that only 0.2 percent of households in the measured areas tuned into the invitational event.
Golf Digest's Joel Beall provided the damning context behind the ratings, as the comedic animal show "outdrew" the LIV broadcast in numbers.
After failing to sign a deal with UK broadcasters, LIV are relying heavily on golf fans outside of the US to use their app and website to stream their events and grow interest in the enterprise.
But Sunday's finale hardly captured the imagination as the highest-profile defectors flattered to deceive. Former PGA Tour veteran Charles Howell III shot a flawless final round 63 to see off Peter Uhlein and claim the £3.3m individual prize, plus an additoinal £625,000 for leading his Crushers team to victory in the team event.
